


Fears of the Dreamers

by HushedSong



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Character Death, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, F/M, In the Fade, Lots of Angst, Maybe - Freeform, Mention of past character deaths, Minor Alistair/Female Warden, Minor Violence, Some Swearing, Sort Of, ambiguous - Freeform, established relationship(s) - Freeform, minor/background F!Hawke/Fenris, only a little though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 21:57:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11953458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HushedSong/pseuds/HushedSong
Summary: When she falls physically into the Fade, the mark allows Lavellan to sense the fears of others as the Nightmare does. To escape, she must face not only her own fears, but the fears of Inquisition soldiers, her companions, and the dreamers she encounters in the Fade.





	Fears of the Dreamers

**Author's Note:**

> When doing the Fears of the Dreamers side quest in the Fade, I couldn't help thinking how it was super convenient that the things the shades needed were always RIGHT NEXT to them. So, I started wondering what would happen if the Inquisitor had to give something of theirs up to help them, and this happened.

The others can’t hear the whispers. They stare when she asks, concern not voiced but obvious. Cassandra and Varric exchange a glance they think she doesn’t see. Alistair frowns and Hawke’s eyebrows knit together, head cocking to the side. Solas says it’s likely the fear demon that controls this area is targeting her specifically because of the mark, because of who she is and what she represents. He says in the Fade the mark works as an amplifier. Says it is merely toying with her mind and the best defense is to ignore its tricks and keep moving. They all agree, just mind games, just lies, not real, none of it real.

But she can hear them.

The victims at the conclave, not just the clerics and templars and enchanters, but the servants, the bodyguards, the scribes. The villagers at Haven, farmers, children, Inquisition soldiers, killing in her name, slain for her cause, cut down in the hundreds because she moved a piece of metal across a map. She can hear it, their final moments, afraid that they’d chosen the wrong side, afraid their deaths would be for nothing, afraid they’d failed _her_.

She hears the fear of the still-living, too, the soldiers still fighting demons, fearing that their Inquisitor, their Herald, has fallen, fearing that all of Thedas is lost without her. She wonders if it’s not because of the mark that she can hear the whispers, but because she’s the one who failed them.

It’s a particularly sharp sort of pain hearing Cullen: _The bridge, falling, that light--it can’t have been her, it can’t be--need to get up there, need to see--she needs to come back. She has to._

She grips the coin he entrusted her, worn on a chain around her neck, and continues forward.

* * *

Her magic is different here--wilder, stronger, less like directing a river and more like holding back a tide. The sparks of lightning that do not meet their targets don’t dissipate, but bounce and flit off towards the Black City, new stars. Every breath in brings more magic into her, every breath out is a fight not to make sparks.

When she notices the shade, sitting at a legless table, empty but for the stub of a candle, feels the fear of the light never returning, darkness stretching, consuming, it is instinct rather than choice that calls fire to her fingers, reigniting the light.

The shade’s relief warms her, for a moment the whispers quieter than the flickering candle.

She wonders if this is what Cole feels like always.

She hears Cassandra’s voice, concerned, stern, but her fear is louder. _The Inquisitor's eyes turn to things not there, answering wishes of spirits--demons--she cannot be possessed, not her, not now--_

She wonders how Cole stands it. Suddenly understands why he thought he was a ghost.

* * *

The next shade she finds is--was--a farmer. Calloused hands, sunbrowned skin, curved spine--she understands this is what he is even as her eyes only see a vaguely human-shaped shadow. She sees a Blight ravaged land, feels his fear that nothing will ever grow there again, that it will spread, that _nothing_ will ever grow again…

The solution does not come by instinct this time, and her companions urge her to keep moving, save Solas, who stares at her, head cocked slightly, a fear faint and overpowered by others, but it’s something about her getting this _right_ , because if she does, that means--

She understands then, her hand moving toward her belt. Since coming to the Inquisition she’s carried flasks of healing draught, but there’s something about chewing on elfroot leaves that feels more substantial, more than just the pain going away, it’s memories of cold, hungry nights around a fire with Keeper Deshanna and Ena and Isi and Eoir--but they aren’t around a fire with the Halla and aravels, they’re in Wycome, and the nobles want them dead, tried to slaughter them and will again, and

Her fingers run over the smoothness of the leaves, green and familiar, as she draws them from a pouch on her belt before pressing them into the supposed-to-be-hands of the shade. Elfroot will grow anywhere, especially where people say it can’t.

She notices Solas’ sad smile as the shade fades in warm relief.

* * *

The Divine, here, real. But she can’t be real-- _I failed her, she’s been here all this time and we left her, I left her_ \--how can she tell if it’s a helpful spirit or a trickster demon? It called her Inquisitor, but all that means is it’s not the real Divine, the human Divine-- _her Right Hand betrayed her, left her in the Fade_ , _but no, that’s not her, can’t be her, the Rite was supposed to save me from demons_ \--

The Dalish have no Harrowing, no absurd ritual meant to prevent demon possession by forcing a demon into the mind of a young mage. She was taught meditation, mindfulness, lucid dreaming, ways to keep her mind strong and calm, so that no demon would be attracted to her weakness. All fine and good before she fell physically into the Fade with a mark that allows a millennia-old fear demon, the maybe-Divine called it a Nightmare, to speak directly into her mind. How can she tell if this being that looks like the Divine means her harm? How can she tell if her fears have foundation or are shadows cast by the whispers invading her mind?

 _What happened is in the past. I will not be afraid_.

Her fingers find the coin resting in the hollow of her throat. She needs some luck more than ever.

* * *

The memories don’t feel quite like hers. She knows, somehow, that they’re true, but they feel removed somehow, experienced by a completely different person. Which she is, in a way. She knows the Inquisition has changed her, but it is still a shock to come face to face with her past self and almost not recognize her. Who she was a year ago would have been disgusted at the thought of being friends with shem’len, let alone leading them. Let alone loving one.

She hasn’t told him that yet. The words always stuck in her throat, she swallowed them down out of fear she’d regret it later. Maybe it is for the best, if she doesn’t make it out of this place. She doesn’t want to add to his scars.

* * *

A soldier, a Warden, spent his life fighting for more important men’s lost causes, then conscripted and joined and called and left for dead in the Deep Roads, wanting to have had some choice in how he got there. To know that he was more than a pawn, more than incidental, that fate would remember the change he wrought even if the world didn’t. _Let it have been my choice_.

She considers for a long moment, fingers running over the mark on her palm. Had it been her choice to be in the corridor at the conclave, her choice to hear Justinia’s cries for help, her choice to answer them? Her choice to stay, but what choice was that really, when the alternative was to let the world be swallowed?

Within Leliana’s spy network, each member of the inner circle has a code name corresponding to a constellation. When outside Skyhold, each of them carry a tarot card with their constellation, to be used as a signal in case of emergency.

She draws hers out slowly. Visus, the Watchful Eye, the Eye of the Maker, Guide of Andraste. A symbol stolen from the Alamarri by the Chantry, used by the first Inquisition and her Inquisition.

She holds the card out to the shade face down. Its spectral hand reaches out, slowly, as though with great effort. After turning over the card, the shade fades, and no sense of relief comes this time. Only resignation. Duty.

She does not have a choice in what fate deals her, only in whether she accepts it. Only in whether she is afraid of it.

* * *

The fears of the Inquisition soldiers are quieter than they were when she first fell into the Fade. The demons and crazed Wardens have been dealt with, the Archdemon has fled for the moment. Their strongest dread is that their Inquisitor is lost to them. Strongest of all in Cullen. He’s made his way to the place where she fell, sees the crumbled stone, _must be brave for the men, cannot show any fear, but she is gone, she is with the demons and I can do_ nothing.

Her stomach turns with his, heart twists with his, her hands go to rest on a pommel that is not there, they reach up to run through her hair, and part of her feels surprised to find it long and braided. Still, these are fears she can deal with. These fears she can do something about. They march on.

The Nightmare seems to sense her growing resolve, however, and does its best to stoke the fears of her companions. To her relief, they are made of sterner stuff than farmers and foot soldiers. They shoulder their fears with the ease of familiarity, and their terrors hum quietly in the back of her mind like half-remembered melodies.

Cassandra’s fears beat along familiar tracks, painful but expected. She takes them like she takes blows to her shield. No matter the number or force, she will not break.

Solas’ fears have been calloused over, he is numb to the brunt of it, louder is the guilt of how indifferent he has become.

Varric’s fears are tallied in ink, recorded, catalogued. Any story worth a damn has conflict, flawed characters, struggle before resolution. But he will control where the story ends.

Alistair is right--he has heard worse from Morrigan, when they were both younger and her words still cut. Being a Warden means accepting that all fears--death, madness, loss-- _will_ come to pass, and it is a burden he learned to carry long ago. The only weight he struggles to shoulder is the emptiness at his side, the cold metal band around his finger a poor substitute for a hand in his. But that weight was there before the Fade. His love has always come back to him, and he will come back to her.

Their fears all stay distant, contained, shadows and echoes, and she can’t hear their details or condemnations.

Except for Hawke.

Hawke’s fear pulses like a heartbeat, warm and heavy and quick. _Carver, gone, spine cracked in an instant because I was too slow, Mother’s blame sliding between my ribs, deserved. Bethany, gray and trembling in my arms in the Deep Roads, nothing I can do, nothing I can do save the dagger in my baby sister’s back. Streets burning, dead piling, the Viscount’s head at my feet and the cause was at my side for three fucking years, and I didn’t see, how could I not see, how could I let her run away? Mother, stitched and bleeding in another woman’s wedding dress, nothing but the dagger for her, again, too late, always too late. The Chantry gone, the city burning, Thedas at war, because of him, and I_ helped _him. My fault, all of it’s my fault, my mess to fix, and there’s only the dagger, always the dagger…_

Hawke’s fear doesn’t show outwardly, at least, not in a way that would be obvious without the Nightmare whispering trauma into her mind. And, perhaps, to Varric, whose eyes follow the Champion with concern, Bianca launching bolts at any demons who dare try to attack his friend’s flank. Hawke fights as well as ever, short swords blurring and flashing. But in between battles, she picks fights with Alistair over the Wardens. _The Wardens, who did nothing as the Qunari razed the city, who were silent as graves when one of their own started a war, who took advantage of a man just trying to protect his children. And where is the Hero of Ferelden now, when the world has been torn open by a darkspawn? Out looking for a way to let Wardens back out of their oaths._

She tells them to both shut up, that they have bigger things to worry about, and tries to ignore Hawke’s racing heartbeat.

_I can’t watch them die. I can’t be the last one standing. Not again._

* * *

As she leads the group through the graveyard, she doesn’t realize at first whose names are on the headstones. When she does she tries not to look, but the Nightmare, now as ever, doesn’t care for privacy.

_Becoming his parents. Helplessness. Dying alone. Surviving alone. Losing her._

None of them are surprised. Varric gives Hawke a gentle pat on the back and says maybe they should move on.

They do, but she still sees her name, carved in stone, an epitaph in elegant script:

Not being enough.

First of clan Lavellan, Herald of Andraste, Inquisitor. It’s been so long since she didn’t have a title.

* * *

Not long after the graveyard, they meet another shade. This one seems to approach her, floating in her path, translucent arms reaching, pleading. Whether if it’s because it knows how she helped the others or simply because it is more desperate, she cannot tell.

The shade is from the first Blight, _my daughter, grey veins and bloodshot eyes, dying in my arms_ , needs a way to stop it, the Archdemon keeps rising, _I cut the dragon’s heart out myself but it rises again in a new body, how can I fight the dead?_

She doesn’t have anything in her belt for this, there is no magic that can cure it. She holds out empty palms, she can’t do that, she doesn’t know how.

Solas asks what it wants and she tells him, Cassandra tries to urge her on, Varric tells her gently she can’t save every ghost, Hawke shifts from foot to foot, twirling her swords agitatedly.

Alistair steps forward, removing his hand from his glove and his knife from its sheath. Before she can ask him what he’s doing, his hand is cut open, blood falling through the spirit’s form.

 _Of course_ . It is already fading. _We must become like it_.

Cassandra is alarmed, fears of blood magic and sacrifices and binding, but she shows her the blood still on the ground, not taken. The spirit didn’t want the blood. It wanted the answer.

When more spiders appear, Alistair wields his shield as though he’d never been injured, teeth gritted against the pain. Hawke no longer confronts him about the Wardens’ failings.

* * *

They’re getting close, she can tell by how fast her heart is beating, how she has to time her breaths to her footsteps to keep from passing out. Her knuckles have gone white where she grips Cullen’s coin, and she takes his fear, still pounding in the back of her head, as motivation to keep going. He has gone through too much pain for her to add to it. He is waiting for her. The Inquisition is waiting for her.

Hawke’s mind is a never ending cycle of her friends lying dead while she stands, blood and tears dripping from her face, too late to save them. Most often her mind comes back to an elf with dark skin, white hair, and tattoos that aren’t vallaslin, and the only thing keeping the Champion together is gratefulness that he is not here too.

The others’ resolve is cracking, hands worrying at their weapons, jumping at every shadow. Solas is the only one who maintains some semblance of serenity, but she notices his knuckles white around his staff, his ears tipped slightly downward.

How can she fight the manifestation of fear itself if she can barely breathe?

She doesn’t see the bed until she almost runs into it.

It is tiny, rough hewn, covered with a handmade yellow quilt. Another shade, a child, hair lovingly braided and tied with fading ribbons. Freckles, big brown eyes, sunburned arms. She died in Haven. Burned alive, trapped in her house, hiding under the blankets.

She falls to her knees beside the bed, hands reaching out of their own accord. Anything, she will give this little girl anything, she needs to make this right, it can never be made right.

_Mama says I need to be brave, that the Herald will protect us. I still get bad dreams though. I miss Ser Snort. Papa said he sewed luck in every stitch to keep the nightmares away. I miss Ser Snort. I miss Papa. Mama said that won’t happen again, the Inquisition will keep it from happening again. But the sky is still green. I still have nightmares._

Her hands are shaking and tears are falling down her face, but she doesn’t hesitate, lifting the chain from around her neck, pressing a single kiss to the face of the coin before placing it around the child’s neck, the shade’s neck.

_Mama was right, the Herald came back!_

* * *

When the Divine--the spirit who looks like the Divine--tells them the Nightmare itself is guarding the tear, the exit, that they will have to fight its projection to escape, she knows they will die. The last battle they had was a close thing, Solas’ barriers protecting the others from her own wild magic as much as they protected from the demons themselves. Varric’s shots went wide when he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, Hawke flew at her targets with no thought to the demons closing in behind her, Alistair’s shield arm quaked, and even Cassandra’s footwork fumbled. They had fought demons like these a thousand times before, falling out of tears in the Veil in droves, and never faltered. This terror is unnatural, gut-turning, paralyzing. Just what the Nightmare wants.

The spirit-Divine told them she would shield them as best she could, weaken the Nightmare so they could fight their way through. She sees the hope in the others at these words but she knows that it is useless. They don’t hear the whispers, they don’t feel its true power. They don’t know there’s no way to win.

* * *

She wades through the standing water, to her death, to her friends’ deaths, to the Inquisition’s death. Her hand goes to the hollow of her throat but there is only sweat-drenched skin. Her steps slow as her heartbeat quickens and her breath shallows, darkness creeping in her vision, creeping in all around her, how can she go on like this, she can’t

Light.

Not bright, or blinding, but soft, like a candle’s flame or a Halla’s fur or Cullen’s eyes. They stand there, all five, faint pinprick stars against a pitch sky. They give her their strength, five clenched fists against a granite wall, five drops of water against an inferno, five daggers against an army, five seeds in a long-barren wasteland. Five dreamers in a Fade of nightmares.

It is enough.

She still hears the whispers, still feels the terror and dread and fear pounding at her from all sides, still knows Cullen is gripping the pommel of his sword too tightly, looking toward the sky. But there is focus, determination, she knows that she has the power to put all those fears to rest, and she realizes, with sudden clarity, that the Nightmare, the demon in her mind, fears her. That if it doesn’t stop the battle before it begins she will destroy it at its very foundations.

She still fears she will not be enough.

But she fears death without trying more.

A light shines at the neck of the smallest shade, and she strides forward to face their fear.

* * *

The battle is shorter than she thought it would be. With the focus to use the full force of her magic, the Nightmare’s projection falls, crumpling under the heat of lightning and flame, strong until confronted. She almost laughs.

The spirit of the Divine does as promised, expending her power to hold back the Nightmare itself long enough for them to fell the projection and run to the tear. Varric goes through first, then Solas, then Cassandra, before they are knocked back. Her gut clenches and she fights to keep her breathing steady as the Nightmare rises again, disoriented, confused, but far from defeated. It couldn’t have been that easy.

Alistair realizes what needs to be done before she does. He adjusts his shield, wincing slightly, plants his feet. Tells them to go.

She takes a step towards the tear without thinking, but Hawke doesn’t follow. Refuses to leave him. She will stay.

Alistair starts to protest but the Nightmare roars and thrashes and they don’t have time. He looks to her. So does Hawke.

Alistair’s jaw is set and his feet are planted, but she feels the fear rise in him, the steady bravery from before cracking like a dam. _I’m supposed to go back to her. Everything we go through, it’s together. We die together, whether in the Deep Roads from the Calling or peacefully in our sleep. I’m not supposed to leave her_.

Hawke is breathing heavily, so much blood on her swords and armor and face that it’s impossible to tell how much is hers and how much is her victims’. Her heartbeat is steady. She is not afraid to die. _Varric is safe. Fenris will be hurt and angry but he will live. I will save the Inquisitor, and she will save the world. I will have done all I can. I wasn’t too late this time._

She pulls Alistair with her through the tear, and Hawke readies her swords, a sad smile on her face.

Later, she would say that she saved Alistair because the Wardens needed a leader to rebuild, but that would never be the real reason. Alistair was afraid to die, and the Nightmare would have eaten him alive. Hawke, whose fears were louder than all the rest, faced death unafraid.

And the Nightmare feared her for it.

She would tell everyone that Hawke was dead, because it was probably true. But she would never quite believe it.

* * *

“Inquisitor!”

“Inquisitor Lavellan!”

“Lady Inquisitor!”

“The Herald!”

“She’s alive!”

“Praise Andraste!”

“Praise the Maker!”

“She’s returned!”

“From the Fade--she’s returned from the Fade!”

“Our Herald!”

“Returned from the dead!”

“Inquisitor Lavellan!”

“Inquisitor!”

She doesn’t understand how the real world can be so loud and yet so quiet at the same time. Her senses return with full clarity, as though she’d been underwater, but her mind feels strangely barren with only her own thoughts. She’s in the courtyard where she faced Clarel, surrounded by cheering Inquisition soldiers. The sun is just beginning to rise and a stiff breeze blows loose strands of hair from her face. She is suddenly all too aware of the ache in her limbs, bruises forming on her arms and ribs, and the suddenly-heavy weight of her staff.

She searches for Cullen with her thoughts first before she thinks to use her eyes. She finds Varric instead.

“Where’s Hawke?”

She’s never heard his voice crack before.

Her throat is too dry to speak, and she swallows hard. “She told me to tell you goodbye.”

It’s strange, seeing the expressions on his face without feeling the emotions behind them. He turns from her and pushes his way out of the cheering crowd. She watches him until he’s gone from her sight. She feels scooped out, hollow.

She climbs the battered stone steps, part of her marveling at their solid feel beneath her feet, up to where Clarel had spoken to her Wardens before. She must speak to them. She must be their leader. She must be their Inquisitor.

* * *

After she speaks to her soldiers, after she is passed from person to person to be hugged, to have her hands shaken, to accept teary thanks, on occasion from someone who has fallen to their knees, Cullen finally finds her. He gathers her into his arms without a word, planting relieved kisses on the top of her head with no thought to the soldiers around them.

Sobs she has been holding in finally break free, and her knees nearly give out from exhaustion as she wraps her arms around him and holds on for all she’s worth.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I made you worry, I’m sorry I couldn’t save all of them, I’m so sorry--”

“Hush,” he says gently, rubbing slow circles into her back. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. We won today. You dealt a huge blow to Corypheus, and--” His voice breaks slightly. “And you came back.” He takes a deep breath and holds her tighter. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I lost your coin.”

“I--what?”

“The coin you gave me, I lost it in the Fade. I’m so sorry, I know how much it meant to you and--why in the world are you laughing?”

He can’t answer at first, shoulders shaking, trying to stifle his laughs and failing.

“Cullen!”

He lets out a last chuckle before taking her face in his hands, his eyes warm and light. “You battle an army of demons, not to mention a blighted dragon, fall physically into the Fade, barely make it back alive, and you think I’m worried about a blasted coin?” He kisses her once on her lips and again on her forehead. “Maker’s breath, love, is that really where you think my priorities are?”

She lets out a surprised laugh, and it feels like she hasn’t smiled in years. She wraps her arms around him once more and thinks that her fears can rest, just for now. For now, in the arms of the human she loves, she has no titles, and she is enough.


End file.
